Publications

Publication details [#63139]

Hartzell, Stephanie. 2017. An (in)visible universe of grief: Performative disidentifications with white motherhood in the We are not Trayvon Martin blog. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 10 (1) : 62–79.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
Routledge

Annotation

This paper proposes a critical rhetorical analysis of social media discourse of white mothers protesting the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer. It asserts that through affectively charged performative disidentifications (ACPD), white mothers contributing to the We are not Trayvon Martin blog worked within and against norms of ideal motherhood to defy dominant formations of whiteness in ways that exposed the privileged status of U.S. American white motherhood and reconceptualized motherhood as an affective orientation toward antiracism. Unpacking ACPD with privileged racial identities is important for increasing understandings of white antiracist rhetoric and promoting formations of white antiracist awareness.